dollar, dollar bill y'all?

I just realized after cashing out 1k the other day that the dollar course has been really bad lately. I'm glad I have some of my bankroll offline in euro accounts and some of it online in euro accounts. I'd estimate that I have about 40% still in dollars though. It sucks to cash out larger amounts when the course is like this, but I don't have much of a choice. I think I'll try and split it up 50/50 with my euro accounts and dollar accounts to decrease losses and hope for the course to get better sometime soon.

1-0 3/6 v Danny

Getting owned a bit, but playing well for the most part. I didn't expect to maintain 10ptbb/100 over the entire month anyways. The good thing about me losing again is that it gives me more motivation to do better and play more. I'm down about 1.8k @ 3/6 for this month which nothing really, but I decided to play some pure 2/4 till I reach 9k again and then take some more stabs.
Cheers to Dodgy for taking the time to look at some of my tougher 3/6 hands.
I've figured out a way how to post hands from iPoker using Holdem Manager, you have to copy all the xml files to a text file and then upload it as a sinlge session on weaktight and you get an output of the hands you want. Here are some of my 2/4 hands:

preying on weakness

This hand is a pretty standard spot, a weak and fishy player leads out on a dry board. This was the third time he did this to me. The first hand I raised him and he folded. The second time I raised him he called, I hit my hand on the turn, small lead/raise/call, and followed through on the river and he folded. I decided that I'd just keep on applying the pressure but when he calls again, even though I pick up outs I decided it was better to try and hit getting ridiculous odds.

questionable

I think this hand was questionable, villain was opening a lot of hands from late position and I figured I could get him to fold out a lot of over cards that were in his range. I felt obliged to follow through on this turn since he can be calling with a lot of one pair hands and small pps and maybe even some a high hands, because of the wheel draw. Given the way he snap shoved this turn I feel he flopped big.

muppet # 1

Not much to say about this guy, I was commited to the pot so I tried to get the money in. Not a super +ev spot I thought at first, untill I saw his hand.

meh

This guy was a big fish and a big station. I think I need to check and fold this river. There is a small chance villain might play a hand like T8 this way, but I think his range his heavily weighted towards flushes here. Especially against weaker players I can find a lot better spots.
Just kinda frustrating when you have AA against a big fish and he hits, but it won't be profitable for him and that's why I think it's important to muck here.

Hmm

This was an awkward spot against this reg. His lead doesn't really make any sense as a bluff, because this flop hits my perceived UTG range pretty hard. It's pretty unlikely he has a set here, JJ at best and I think a check raise extracts more value here with JJ. I am in pretty bad shape if he has Ahxh here, drawing close to dead, but I didn't think it made a lot of sense given his pf play. AQ is a possible hand he can have here too I guess aswell as aggro played TT. I think if I raise here I should raise slightly bigger to lay myslef better odds to call a shove. All in all not a great spot, but I ran well in the hand and I think villains preflop call is pretty bad. I don't really like calling on this flop , because I don't think villains range is strong enough to give me value on later streets and I raise a lot of my strong hands here so it's hard to rep a strong range by calling and floating. A fold seems weak here, I'm open for input on this hand.

standard

Somewhat I guess, if he is reraising JJ here he shouldn't be folding imo. It's also an awkward spot for him to be in with JJ, but I don't think he can fold this against my image preflop and I don't like calling pf. I know some regs smooth call here, but I don't see too much value in doing so.

awkward

I decide to smooth call my AJ vs a wide openers btn range. I don't like reraising here with the stacks and I think you should either fold or call pf. Postflop I am in a weird spot as I do not want to build the pot so this is a spot where I think pot control>hand protection. Unluckily I get an overcaller who at this point I put on quads or a flush draw. On the turn I think I am ahead against the villain betting small almost always so I call again, but we get reraised and I find an easy fold.

very thin

I contemplated for a long time whether I should bet here or not. I knew if I bet it I'd have to fold to a raise, I almost think I need to check it down here, because it is unlikely he can call me with much here the way the hand played out. I kinda felt obliged to put in a bet here, I am not sure about my play.

just bet

I think it is the best play here unless against a weak player that will bet his entire range here when checked to. My check doesn't make too much sense here as I think I am betting almost all the time on the flop and it will get checked back a lot from a villain that has air as he will think I am up to something. My reasoning for checking at the time was that I am trying to put in the last bet with drawing hands to maximize the profitability of playing them. Anyway he checked back I pick up a lot of outs on the turn so I go ahead and rep a slowplayed strong hand. Villain calls and on the river I think I need to follow through as his line doesn't include a lot of strong made hands and I think I can fold out a lot of middle pair type hands or missed draws maybe. I also picked up some timing tells, my read was right villain was weak on the flop and turn, but he hit.

messed up hand

This hand played out weird. UTG was very tight and SB didn't reraise much for the most part. The timing, the small reraise seemed so suspicious to me that I decided to call which I think is reasonable given my read. The flop gets a bit icky. Typically this is a reraise to allin without much thought, but I was still very worried about this hand. I felt I could make a correct tight fold on a later street so I called. Villain didn't really think long before shoving the turn and I really thought I was behind here, I don't see him shoving air or JJ, 99.

dude

Well this was an interesting spot. Out of position this is a fold, but I had position and I was getting 3-1 to call on a rainbow board. The downside was that I had a one card striaght draw and the implied odds are low as we all know. I decide to call hoping to get value from set hands and maybe a two pair hand. After he check calls the turn I am putting him on a set that he is not capable of folding. He thought a while before calling the river and I was very very surprised about seeing AA. This player even seemed fairly reasonable. I don't know what he put me on that he thought he was ahead of. His turn and river play is very poor and I also think if he is limping AA to balance his open limping range he should be reraising with air and monsters instead of limp calling.

i like

These are the kinda guys you want to have sitting at your table. Slowplays JJ pf (can be reasonable at times obv), check and minraises drawy boards, gives you freecards, leads weak on the river and doesn't fold to a raise.

some 3/6 action

I decided to do a MS Paint for this blog. This is me vs 3/6. I'm ready to take on the limit. Still haven't played much yet though, because I just came back from partying in Munich. Although I probably shouldn't have been playing I fired up 3 tables of 3/6 and made a buy in. I wanted to post some hands from Holdem Manager, but I couldn't work it out how to get the naked HHs. I'll ask a friend and then update with some hands.
My biggest pot was vs a very tight ABC reg that seems to be beating the limits for a decent amount, I basically hit trips with my AK vs his JJ and nearly got his entire stack. I'll update with some analysis later once I figure out what the problem is and also with some pics from my weekend when I get them uploaded on my Notebook.

Meh

Didn't get round to playing 3/6, because a friend of mine had a birthday party. The games weren't good anyway when I checked, but they are pretty juicy right now. I will however have to pass, because I cam back from drinking. Tomorrow I'll be going shopping and partying in Munich. The pictures here are from the club we are going to, looks pretty nice.

Some poker stuff

It's been a while since I've posted any results, but I think you'll find this interesting. The green line is my actual winnings for this month so far. The blue line represents money I've won @ showdown, the red represents what I won with hands I didn't showdown. I used Holdem Manager to make this graph, which I purchased the other day. It's a pretty neat tool and definetly faster than the current PT version, but I think they could improve the hand replayer. I'd really like to see some database stats in there and an odds calculator.
I think you can tell that I am running hot for this month so far. I'm not losing much @ showdown. I can't complain really. I have enough bankroll to move up to 3/6, so I'll be contemplating doing that soon. It's just a bit odd, because I haven't really played many hands @ 2/4. I don't really think the difference should be too big though. I'll just datamine it and jump into some juicy games for starters.
I'll go to town now and datamine some 3/6 then try and get some hands in, I'll update how it went.

More pictures

The activity in my blog has been sagging, so as my own marketing director I have decided to employ more pictures to my posts. This is from a show that I have been watching lately. I think it's really interesting, it's about a "good" serial killer that only kills other serial killers. He is traumatized from when he was a little boy and that is why he became the way he is. I think it's worth checking out. It's based in Miami and you can watch all of it on sidereel.com.

life

Hi guys! Haven't been blogging in a while, mainly due to uni stuff. Just thought I'd give a short update of what has been going on.

Poker is still going steady and I am very glad with my results for this month so far. I think I'm at about 10k hands for this month and up 7k. If everything goes according by plan I'll be taking some stabs @ 3/6 soon. Unluckily I haven't been playing much HU so far, but I haven been getting in some FR hands. Full ring is a nice change of pace, but most of the games that have been running lately haven't been anything special. Somehow I've still managed to get into big pots with the fish and hold up. I'm surprised @ the high amount of FR nits that just seem to be waiting for the big cards.
I've been doing more maths behind the game lately, I think it really hepls with deepening your feel for the game without playing a ridiculous amount of hands. After I am done reading Elements Of Poker, I'll definetly pick up my copy of Mathematics of Poker and start reading it.

Non-poker wise, I went snowboarding yesterday for the first time this season. I had some friends friends that I know from Spain come down and they were motivated to hit the mountains, so that's what we did. It was actually quite fun and I'm glad I dug out all my stuff to go. It was fun meeting some New Yorkers and I think I'm psyched to go to New York sometime soon and check out the city. They say it's very Europe-like anyway.

The other day I got a call from UB and the lady on the phone informed me about the new bonus system @ ub, which seems promising and encourages long term play like all the other sites, however when she ended the call she ended it with "Thanks for your time honey.", which made me laugh :P.

When I have some more time I'll post some hands that I've been playing.

l8r

xdsl

I've got my xdsl all setup now with a router and all and it's really nice. It's very fast and it's a flat rate.

I'm a little bit behind in the hands I should be playing, but this is not entirely my fault. I have been very busy running around and trying to organize things for uni, plus one day I didn't have any internet, because my ISP was down and another I wasn't feeling well. Basically I'm trying to catch up now, by playing more than 1k hands when I can. We'll see how that turns out. Poker in itself is running very well though, my results are good and I think I am playing well, but not great. I'm also sure now that I'm running above expecation, because I'm getting it in with a lot of coolers for my opponents.
I'm not playing on iPoker right now due to their VIP system. Basically I will be playing there soon again when the reloads come back for February. I'm trying to maintain my Absolute VIP level for the meanwhile. I still get a lot of rakeback there, although I guess it's around 10-20% less than when I first joined. I contacted support and they claimed it was a little bit too much rakeback they were offering. It's however still decent for a VIP elite player. I think it's in the range of 60%, maybe I'll do the maths sometime.

As far as non poker related topics go, I'm training right now to get accepted into sports management. I'd consider myself to be an athletic person and I'm interested in how the human body works etc.. It'll be good for me, because I need something to aim for, to keep me motivated when I train. The trickiest part is 200m freestyle. We have to do it in 3:50 which isn't ridiculous by any means, but since I rarely ever swim I still need to train for it. I hope that turns out well.
Even though I am on holidays I'm still running around all the time doing stuff for uni etc :/.

I'm also reading the book Elements of Poker from Tommy Angelo. It's an interesting book as it gives you some insight of a lot of other aspects of poker that are rarely covered, but are very important. I'd say it's a mandatory read for any serious poker player.

Kinda...

...messed up...my sleeping rhythm. It's 8am on Sunday now. I slept from like 2pm-9pm on Saturday and then went to a friend's girlfriend's birthday party. Came home around 2am and slept till 6am, got up. Played 400 hands of iPoker 2/4 and now I'm sitting here writing this. I made 140$ in those 400 hands and was definelty running above expectation and playing ok I guess. I was hitting all kinda lame suckouts though. 2c3cts, effective stack to pot ratio was like 5 against a fishy guy. I have 88, opened from co he smooths in the sb. Flop goes check, cbet, allin and I call figuring that he'll have a draw here a lot and my hand just felt good here. I don't think he plays 99 that way and he won't have a higher overpair too often, JJ at best. So I figured I was up against a T or some kinda draw and sometimes a set (I think you have to discount sets here from a weak players range, cause they like to slowplay). Anyway I semi-snap and he shows qt and I hit the 8 :P. I ended up stopping though because it's a euro site and there were hardly any games running and I didn't have to play. I also played some more FR and the table seemed pretty good. There usually aren't many FR games running, but I always sit in on the ones that are. It's a nice change of pace and the games look very beatable.
I was thinking of playing some HU now, but I am not sure I should :P. I'm gonna grab some food and then go from there. My aim is to not fall asleep before 9pm so that I can convert to a normal sleeping rhythm, which I'll need to find the energy to work out, study and play poker.

My place is a mess, I need to get some more cupboards or something... All in all I'm pretty pleased and excited about life now. Sometimes we don't realize how good we have it. We have so many open doors, health, wealth (even if you don't have much money and you live in a first world country, you are still pretty wealthy compared to the rest of the world) and easy access to information...Some random blurts of thoughts there for you, lol.

February

I had a nice start to February as you can see. I think I played well, but also ran well. I'm disapointed with myself about January as I didn't play much at all. I had the right intentions as I was trying to focus on my studies, but I didn't study enough to justify the amount I played.
January ended at roughly 10k hands +5k.
My plan for this month is to play more regularly (I'm going for 1k hands a day). I'll also be further working on my hu game on NL 100 untill I make enough to move up to 200. I'll aim for 300-500 hu hands a day. Sometimes you end up playing longer, because you're in a good match with a weak and or tilting player and you don't want to quit him, but I'll also not play if I don't feel like I'm playing my A-game. So I'm aiming for about 30k hands in Feb.
I'll be playing almost entirely on Titan Poker (iPoker) for this month with some hu on Prima (Battlefield skin). I also played some Full Ring today and ended up +800 there. I don't feel like it's too different from 6max, but definetly profitable. I guess it comes down to table selection. If there are no good 6 max games, I can go play FR or HU and I think that table selection will add to my winrate and flexibilty.